If, like me, you are one for a bit of spontaneity and a lover of winter sun, but heavily restricted on time AND money, then late October and November are the perfect time to get away to a tiny island in the Med!
Silent City or Party Island
Tag: Chocolate
Bring on Brussels
The hotel looked heaps grander on the internet than it was in real life, and the smell of stale cigarette smoke hung in the room, despite the fact I’d selected ‘non-smoking’. The decor looked like it had dropped straight out of a 1960’s Bond movie – plush sofas, curtains made of heavy fabrics and clashing colours – and I was expecting Mr Bond to walk straight through the door…but he didn’t!
Viva Colognia
Crazy Cologne:
29th JULY: The time had come to leave the Dam…for now. We were up bright and early for a very windy open top car ride down to Cologne. Now looking suitably windswept we checked into our next accommodation and made a beeline for the nearest restaurant, which just so happened to have the most amazing leg of lamb and potatoes, before donning our ludicrous rave t-shirts and hitting the town.
Dinner at Peter’s Brauhaus
The boys in their rave t-shirts
Hitting The Dam
Hitting The ‘Dam:
25th JULY: Feeling in desperate need of an adventure I’d booked a one-way flight to Amsterdam and made no further plans, until I was at Heathrow! After touching down and successfully navigating my way out of Amsterdam Schifoll airport and onto the right train I arrive in the city center, where it’s now time to find my hosts. While waiting to board my flight from London, I’d posted a last minute ad on backpacker website Couch Surfing to see if anyone could put me up for the night, and I was in luck, after wandering the streets for the best part of 2 hours I eventually found them.
How to be a Chalet Chef
There are many things you can do for the Residential section of your Gold Duke of Edinburgh. You can do a Corde en Bleu cookery course in a fancy hotel in Oxford for the week, you can work on a kids camp in Scotland. You could even take a barge up and down the river in Kent and carry out conservation work for the British Wetland Society. OR, you can join the Snow Crazy Chalet Host Cookery Course in La Rosier, France for a few weeks and learn how to be a ski Chalet Host. Well, why not?
Hong Kong – Checking out the sights
We mistakenly thought we would be well rested after spending the previous day leisurely taking in the sights (sounds and smells) that Hong Kong had to offer. However, we unfortunately hadn’t factored in the unofficial ‘Symphony of Car Horns’ that lasts for the entire duration of the night…EVERY night.
Hip Hip Hong Kong
The journey across was pretty quick, much quicker and more efficient than immigration from mainland China to Macau, just basically a walk over a long bridge. Around 8am we checked into the ‘Cosmic Guesthouse’ …”The crystal-clean, quiet, friendly and secure ‘Cosmic’ is a consistent favorite with travelers…” read the description in Lonely Planet.
Maccanese Madness
After a suitable party-fuelled recharge in Guangzhou (well, what else is there to do there) I was heading to Macau for my own little bit of family history, and some amazing egg tarts (mum had gone on and on about then for ages, so I figured I simply had to try them!) I checked into the Victoria Hotel for the best nights sleep I’d had since the toy town in Mongolia! As with most hotels in China, I was highly amused by more Chinglish signs.
Chinglish
Did they mean my glasses?
Party Capital Guangzhou
Twenty Eight Hours Later – sounds like the introduction to a horror story doesn’t it? Well it felt like it…I am NEVER doing 28 hours on a hard sleeper train EVER AGAIN! I finally arrive in Guangzhou – dubbed the ‘European Party Capital of China’.
Shanghai – Whore of the Orient
Saved the last of my pennies to afford a flight from Beijing to Shanghai, still not sure if I would have been better off getting the train…either way it was still like being in folded into a tin can next to a furnace. But it got me to my destination eventually (after a 3hr delay)
The Adventures of Elle Coco 